Page 57 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper
But then he swallowed hard and took a step back, loosening his bow tie a bit. He needed to put some distance between them.
Because he couldn’t keep this up. Not if he wasn’t going to apologize for stomping on her heart back then, for walking out without even a goodbye.
I should have said I was sorry…
But I didn’t know how to reach you without endangering my family.
I didn’t know how I could let you see what I’d become—the homeless shelters and constantly skipping town and me and Ben selling candy at intersections and bus stops to make extra cash.
And then I didn’t know how I could mend what I’d destroyed.
I didn’t know how I could ever have you back in my life.
“Do you want to get some air?” Oliver asked. “I saw that the elevator had a button for one more level above us—the rooftop.”
Chloe
Had he felt it, too? The crackle in the air between them when they danced, the prickle of yearning on every inch of skin?
Chloe didn’t say much as she followed Tolly up to the roof. But sheknewthis feeling exactly. She’d felt it once before, right before the first time she’d ever been kissed.
It was him, wasn’t it?
But if so, why had he lied?
As the elevator doors opened to the rooftop, the muggy air startled her. It had been air-conditioned in the ballroom, and Chloe had forgotten that it was humid outside, the clouds heavy above them in the night sky. All around them, New York twinkled. A handful of other gala guests were admiring the views, but not many; it was much more comfortable in the temperature-controlled ballroom.
Chloe walked to the railing to take in the skyline. A moment later, Tolly stepped up beside her. She had so many questions, but she had to come at them gingerly or risk him pulling away yet again.
“I’ll never get over this view,” she said. “Maybe it would be boring if you were born here originally, but I love it, because I wasn’t.”
He hesitated—only for a split second, but she caught it—then he said, “I know what you mean.”
“You’re not a native New Yorker then?” she asked.
“No.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed. You’ve got the brusque conversation part down,” Chloe teased.
Tolly let out a small laugh.
Even so, she didn’t let herself look at him; instead, she kept focusing onthe skyline. She wanted to give him the illusion of space while she got to what she really wanted to know.
The skyscrapers went on and on, block after block, and below them, the lights of thousands of cars and streetlamps glowed.
“So did you ever think you would end up here?” Chloe asked.
“No,” he said softly. “I thought I would stay close to home. I didn’t need anything more than that.”
“Me neither,” Chloe said.
They were silent then. She could feel him looking at her.
Chloe’s heart pounded in her ears as she turned to him.
The moonlight filtered through the clouds, shadowing his face and tracing every angle—the clean-shaven line of his jaw, the tired hollows beneath his eyes that sketched a story of parts of his life that she didn’t know, the slight crook where he’d broken his nose… and suddenly, she gasped.
Because now when she looked at his eyes—deep, impossibly mossy green—and that fiery hair that used to be covered in emo black dye, together with the crook of his nose… she knew for certain.
